


more to who we are than our broken history

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Episode: s05e13 Damocles Part 2, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Octavia Blake & John Murphy Friendship, Octavia Needs a Hug, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s05e12 Damocles Part 1, Suicidal Thoughts, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 13:29:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: Octavia gains an unexpected ally at her lowest moment. Set after the first scene of 5x13 Damocles Part 2.Warning:Discussion of suicidal thoughts.It was only then that he noticed the gun in her hands. And that her hands were shaking.“You’re not going to do it.” Murphy heard himself say, before he could think about engaging a brain-to-mouth filter.“What makes you think I’m not?”“You’re like me. A survivor at all costs. You won’t do it.”Octavia turned and fixed him with a dead look. “You’re nothing like me.”





	more to who we are than our broken history

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, new fandom! I'm mostly a Malec (Shadowhunters) fangirl, but I have so many Feelings about Octavia Blake that I made a separate AO3 account to share them all with you. This is just the first, because I feel that out of everyone who wasn't Wonkru, Murphy has the best chance of understanding Octavia.
> 
> **Warning:** This fic includes discussion of suicidal thoughts. Please practice self-care and know that you matter!

Murphy roamed through Wonkru’s camp, searching. He’d gone past almost every campfire when he finally saw the one he was looking for - a lone campfire set apart from the rest, where only one figure sat.

_Octavia._

He’d heard the talk in the camp. He’d heard things from Echo and the other defectors and prisoners in Shallow Valley. He knew that Octavia sat apart from the rest as a deposed queen who everyone seemed to hate, though he still wasn’t certain of the reasons why besides vague rumours.

Best to go straight to the source.

Murphy walked right up and sat down next to her without asking for an invitation. She didn’t look up, though her body language clearly indicated that she’d heard him coming.

It was only then that he noticed the gun in her hands. And that her hands were shaking.

“You’re not going to do it.” Murphy heard himself say, before he could think about engaging a brain-to-mouth filter.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“You’re like me. A survivor at all costs. You won’t do it.”

Octavia turned and fixed him with a dead look. “You’re nothing like me.”

“I guess I’m not. I never would have been benevolent enough to share the bunker with as many people as possible. Hell, I wouldn’t have even been brave enough to enter the Conclave in the first place. And I certainly wouldn’t have been so selfless as to sacrifice myself to force a bunch of ungrateful bastards to live.”

“Bellamy’s my brother.”

“I’m not talking about you stepping out in front of a hail of bullets. That was monumentally stupid.”

“Then what are you talking about, Murphy?”

“I’m talking about what everyone else is _not_ talking about. I’m talking about whatever shit went down in the bunker that those fools appear to be too fucking blind to see. I guess being Queen of the Grounders wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”

“What do you know of what happened in the bunker?”

“I don’t. That’s my point. But I can tell it sucked, most of all for you. But unlike the rest of them, I’m not going to judge you for it.”

“What do you want?”

“As much as it may shock both of us, I want to listen. You’ve got a lot of baggage, lay it on me.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Then I will. Did you know I was locked in a bunker for three months?”

“No.”

“I was. When I joined Jaha to look for the City of Light. He went off to find it and I was locked in a bunker.”

“You got the better deal.”

“I know that now. And I didn’t believe his shtick anyway. But after three months in that place alone, I was running out of food and I was right where you are now, sitting there with a gun in my hands. But I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t give the world the satisfaction of giving up.”

“That’s the difference between you and me, Murphy. I do care about the world. About other people. And what’s best for them is if I was dead.”

“Even for Bellamy?”

“Especially for Bellamy.”

Murphy sighed. “Look… I don’t know what happened in the bunker. I don’t know what happened with your brother since you got out. But what I do know is this: Everyone in this camp seems to either fear you or hate you, but the person who hates you the most is you. And that tells me that you had to do some crazy shit to keep these people alive, and that they don’t appreciate what you did for them. And since you’re so down on yourself, you’re willing to take it, because they hate you anyway, so why bother trying to change their minds, right? So you be the bad guy. I get it. I’ve been there. Still am, in a lot of ways.”

“What do you want from me, Murphy?” Octavia asked again, her voice tired beyond reason as she stared into the fire.

“Nothing.” Murphy said, trying a new approach. “And that could well be the first time you’ve heard that in six years.”

Octavia turned her head to face him again, slowly, and this time, he saw that her eyes were full of tears as she shook her head. “I’m not worth it.”

“You’re worth more than all of those pricks, and it’s on them that they don’t see it, not you.”

“How can you say that? You don’t even know what I’ve done.”

“Then tell me. No judgment. I swear. If I judge you, you can take that gun and shoot me.”

Octavia swiped the tears from her face. “You sound so sure.”

“I am. Tell me.”

“It all started the day Jaha died. Day 46.”

“Damn, I thought he would’ve lasted longer than that. He’s almost as much of a cockroach as we are.”

Octavia almost smiled. “That’s the day we learned that getting out of the bunker in five years wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought - the building had collapsed above us. That’s why there was no getting out until the mining prisoners showed up. And the farm wouldn’t be able to support us past that date.”

“I’m guessing panic ensued.”

“You’d be right. And then Skaikru stole the farm. Sealed the doors, leaving everyone else to starve. Well, not all of Skaikru. Some were left on the wrong side of the door. Including Jaha. So while chaos took over, Jaha and I worked to open the door. He was able to rig this thing to short out the electricity to the - anyway, that part isn’t important. What is important is that before we got there, some Azgeda had stabbed him in the gut and he was bleeding out, but didn’t tell us. And then he refused to send the surge until I could get a promise from the Grounders to not massacre all of Skaikru when the door was opened.”

“Sounds like Jaha.”

“He got what he wanted. I had to kill 18 of my own people, of Wonkru, before they submitted to me and agreed to my terms. I didn’t want to, but -”

“Hey.” Murphy interrupted. “No buts. Just the story. No judgments, remember?”

“Anyway. That’s when the fighting pit started. There were too many people, and I had to do something. I had to be ruthless like on the Ark, though like hell was I going to just float people for a crime. I had to give them a chance. A choice. So if they won the fight, that would save their life. That’s the best I could do.”

“Sounds fair.”

“It worked for about two years. We survived best we could. The fights weren’t a regular occurrence - every few months or so. Things were almost normal. Then… then the farm was hit by a fungus. The soybeans, specifically.” Octavia started speaking more slowly, eyes fixed on Murphy as her hand trembled on the gun. “Our only protein source. We didn’t have an algae farm like you. Cooper said it could be a year before they could regrow healthy plants. You can’t live a year without protein. So - so we had to -”

Murphy nodded, understanding what it was that Octavia couldn’t bring herself to say. “So that’s the secret you’ve been keeping for your people. Did they know?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did your people know what they were eating?”

“Yes. I wasn’t going to lie to them.”

“I’m assuming not everyone was on board with that plan.”

“They weren’t. That’s - that’s when -” Octavia trailed off, her hand twitching so violently that she flung the gun halfway to the fire, as if it had offended her.

“You shot the ones who wouldn’t eat.”

Octavia nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You still think I’m worth it?”

“A fast death by bullet is better than a slow death by starvation. And I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that the first also serves everyone else better too, nutrient-wise. You did the right thing to save your people.”

“Then why doesn’t it feel that way?” Octavia whispered.

“Like I said at the beginning - you sacrificed yourself to do it. Moral culpability. You take away their choice, it becomes yours. They don’t feel guilty anymore, but you feel guilt enough for all of them. It sucks, but that’s how you know you’re a good person.”

“How can I be good?”

“Because you _do_ care. Because it _does_ bother you. And you’d think that they would recognize the sacrifice that you made for them by doing what you had to do. I was right, they are a bunch of ungrateful bastards.”

“And today I led them into a massacre. That’s on me too. Over half of my people, just gone.”

“No. That is not your fault. Who told you that it was your fault?”

“Bellamy. Indra. Everyone.”

“No. I was in on that plan. It was solid. It would have worked. If Clarke and Kane hadn’t betrayed us, it would have worked. Those deaths are _not_ on you and I’m getting the urge to punch everyone who says they are.”

Octavia smiled through her tears. “Thank you. But I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

“I guess that means you’re going to have to fight them yourself then, doesn’t it?” Murphy asked, bumping his shoulder against hers.

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

They sat in comfortable silence for awhile, staring into the fire.

“You’re not like the rest of them.” Octavia said, seemingly out of the blue.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, I haven’t seen all of your space adventure squad since you came back, but from what I have - my brother, Monty, Harper, Echo… you’re not like them.”

“Oh, you mean I don’t have the stick of sanctimonious self-righteousness up my ass?”

“Something like that.”

“You know the reason we rushed down here, right?”

“No.”

“We’d gotten onto their ship to steal fuel. Found all the people they had in cryo. Listened in on their comms system. And we heard that they were in the forest, chasing someone. And they caught her. Raven and I stayed on the ship so that we could trigger the kill switch on the people in cryo if needed while Bellamy and the others went down to negotiate for her release.”

“Clarke, I’m assuming?”

“As it turned out. But Bellamy thought it was you. He always regretted leaving you behind.”

“Now he wishes he’d never opened the bunker. Wishes that we’d died down there. That _I’d_ died down there.”

“That’s a radical shift.”

“Yeah. Turns out he doesn’t consider me family anymore.”

“What did he do?”

“He and Clarke murdered one of my people who was working on a way to get us into the valley. And then he tried to kill me when I arrested Clarke for it.”

“Bellamy tried to kill you?”

Octavia nodded. “Something you’ve got some experience with, I’m told. That first batch of algae. He poisoned my rations and told me he loved me while I started choking on it.”

Murphy whistled. “That’s low. And he was there when I tried that stuff. He knows how nasty it is. How much it hurts. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

“He wished it on me.”

“I hope you threw him in the fighting pit.”

“I did. But then Monty and Harper stormed in with their magic algae solution for our hydrofarm, and with that I lost the last traces of support from my people.”

“But you’re here, not there.”

Octavia gave him a look. “Brilliant observation.”

“You burned down the farm.”

“Are you asking or saying?”

“I know going back to Polis isn’t an option. That’s the answer that makes sense.”

“I did. Not my proudest moment. And if Monty had told me about it before everything - before they killed Cooper, before Bellamy poisoned me - I’d have let the people who wanted to stay, stay. If that’s what they wanted. Even if we deserved more, after what we’d been through. But they had _no_ right to storm into my society, make their own rules for what was _right_ and _good_ without having any consideration for what my people and I went through. Without any consideration for the ghosts that we live with there, the ghosts that _I_ lived with there - I know all of their names - the nightmares -” Octavia’s voice rose, then cut off abruptly as she tried desperately to breathe, panic making each gasp worse.

Murphy scrambled to kneel in front of her, grabbing her hands, holding her steady. “Hey. Hey. Octavia. Just breathe, okay? Breathe with me. In and out. In and out.” He pressed her hands to his chest so that she could feel him breathing. “That’s it. It’s okay, you’re good.”

Octavia’s breathing stabilized, and Murphy released her hands. She collapsed forwards onto his shoulder, and he wrapped one arm around her awkwardly, brushing her hair out of her face with the other.

“I get it.” Murphy said after a while, as Octavia pulled back to sit on her own again. “I wouldn’t want to stay in a place like that either. Not only for the memories, but - what if it happened again? Not even Monty’s magic algae can solve every problem. And then you’d be right back to the people burgers. But of course, if Bellamy or Clarke suggest it, that’ll be okay. But god forbid anyone else does.”

Octavia harrumphed. “Yeah. They don’t like being reminded of their hypocrisy, that’s for sure. I get it now, being a leader sucks. It’s unbelievably hard. I didn’t get that before, and when the bunker opened, I was ready to build a real alliance with Clarke, now that I get what she did before. But instead of wanting to understand the situations I’ve had to lead through, she just decided to make decisions for everyone again. And Madi…” Octavia let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I would have protected her. I swear. She joined Wonkru of her own free will, and I would have died to protect her, like I would any of my clan. But Bellamy had his own ideas.”

“He shoved an AI in the kid’s brain and as if by magic everyone follows her now.”

“Yeah. And I don’t blame her. I really don’t. Madi didn’t want any part of this either. But here we all are, and we go to war again tomorrow.”

“You better not do anything stupid again. There’s a limited number of times I can save your ass.”

“Am I really worth saving, Murphy?”

“Damn right you are.”

“How many times?”

Murphy smiled. “Always at least one more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "You Can't Kill Us" by Icon For Hire.


End file.
